


In the Darkness Deep

by ThroughtheMirrorDarkly (orphan_account)



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falmer Dragonborn, Falmer Freeform, Ficlet Collection, Finding Family, Freedom Doesn't Come Cheap, Gen, Growing up with the Falmer screws a person up, Horror, Into the Light, Out of Darkness, Self-Acceptance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-17 17:59:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9336161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ThroughtheMirrorDarkly
Summary: A dragonborn with a darker origin story. A dragonborn born to the Falmer, and how she rose out of the darkness her kind dwelt in, and walked into the light.(Collection of connected One-Shots)





	1. Birthed in Darkness

BIRTHED IN DARKNESS

By ThroughtheMirrorDarkly

* * *

ONE 

‘In the Darkness Deep’

The Falmer is what they were called. 

They were snow elves, a race so fair and wise that stories of the empire they once ruled still were told, but it was always tainted by the dark creature they had became. No, became implied there was a choice. The dwemer took the snow elves in, graciously offered them shelter, and them committed atrocities that had been stricken from history because they were too horrible to be told. Experiments that had left the snow elves blinded, and twisted versions of themselves. Their decedents suffered the same fate, their blood corrupted with what the dwemer did. The Falmer matriarchs were infertile, so the Falmer had to capture females to in order to breed, a most horrid act and the females kept prisoners until the time of birth rolled near. That was if they survived the brutality of their captors. 

Then the child was cut from their stomachs, and the mothers left to die. The child born from such an act was almost always a Falmer just like the seed it came from. The Falmer blood in most cases stronger than their victims, but every so often there is an aberration. A deviation where a child is born fair, and bright, and with eyes wide opened. Only to be slaughtered after their first breath, out of malice, out of jealous, and out of fear. The Falmor remembered nothing of what they once more, little more than animals now, they feared what was different. 

Perhaps, the Gods took offense to such meaningless death. Perhaps, they took offense to the slaughter of those that could have lifted the Falmer out of the dark pit that their race had fallen into, and were tired of the wasted chances. 

Perhaps, that is why the Dragonborn was born to such creatures. 

A child birthed in the dead of the night, with russet brown hair and skin snow white. The child had been quiet, and still, had been left upon the cavern floor. It’s breaths fleeting and hard won, but the child’s heart was strong, the blood of the dragon kept her alive. It was three days later, the child’s eyes opened for the first time, and the Falmer wanted her dead. Wanted the eyes to be shut tight, because she was too different. Too bright. 

But she was not merely different, she was _dangerous._

The scent of her dragon’s blood that beat through her veins had kept the would be attackers at bay because it was the scent of a predator, more dangerous than the Falmer had ever encountered. It did not stifle their hatred, but the fear of this new creature saved her life. The Matriarch fed her, and kept her warm, but do not mistake such acts as maternal. They were not. They were done to appease the new predator in their midst, and nothing more. But it was enough to for the child to grow and to live, so perhaps that was all that was needed. 

If you think the child was miraculously wise and intelligent and knew better than the Falmer, then it would be a bet lost. She had no gifted knowledge, no role model to show her the way. All she had was the Falmer, and she knew no other way. She was a savage, and as soon as she could walk, she fought the other children for food. She was clever, she had to be, and her ability to see gave her an edge that was much needed, for she was smaller than her brethren. Down in the dark dwellings of the cold caves, only the fittest survived. 

But that did not mean the child didn’t understand that she was different. She had seen her reflection in the still blue waters of the underground lake. She saw her skin unblemished, snow white that was unlike the waxy, ashen color of theirs. Her cheeks full instead swallow, and her eyes wide open, the color she would come to know as violet, so unlike the narrowed, sightless ones of the Falmer. A wall of distance always lingered between her and them, and even though she knew no words, no numbers, she knew that if she showed one ounce of weakness that they would prey upon it in a moment’s notice. 

Years rolled by, six or seven when the child dared to peek around the corner of the cave and stare longingly at the sunlight. Something inside of wanted that light, to bathe in it, but fear kept her away. 

It kept her in the darkness, but in darkness she would not stay.


	2. Strangers Like Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank demon_dream and DarkestDecemeber for the bookmarks.  
> I want to thank, demon_dream, Catann, and DarthVadersInhaler and the 5 guests, for the kudos!

* * *

CHAPTER TWO 

“Strangers Like Me”

The pivotal turning point of her life was not when she was called as a Dragonborn. It occurred when she was five or six, for she had not kept track of age back then. She remembered that day very well. It had been harrowing because the youngest of her brethren had taken to challenging, testing her, and she had to always be on guard. She remembered the burn of blistering panic that lanced through her heart when they sought to corner her and ambush her. She hissed, and spat, angrily as they had ran away from her, leaving the body of the dead were it laid. They had underestimated her need to survive as well as her strength. She had a surprising strength that her scrawny and lanky limbs did not imply, but it had been her saving grace. She smeared the blood of the fallen across her face, the smell of it would cling to her skin and serve as a warning for the others that got daring. 

She may not have been learned, or known single word, but she had known her time with the falmer was drawing swiftly to an end. She pressed her flushed body against the cold stone of the cave, soaking up the comfort it brought to her sore limbs. This was the most recent in a string of attacks made on her, and now she slept away from the group for fear of being slaughtered in her sleep. It was a weary existence, and when she was certain that she was safe, she managed to close her tired eyes. Sleep was brief, and her dreams were broken images of the glimmer light of the outside world that she caught glimpses of at the mouth of the cave. In her dream, she was walking towards the mouth of the cave with nothing to stop and was about to walk into the light when a shout jolted her back in the living world. 

For a moment, she laid there in confusion. The noise hadn’t been a scream or squall that her brethren gave. Water dripped off the cavern ceiling onto her face, and she rolled over, shielding her face with her bare arms, waiting. Her heart fluttered in her chest, and another shout echoed through the cave, sending her to her feet in a split second. A snarl on her lips as she drew up her handmade weapon. The handle made from a tree limb that somehow ended up in the bowels of the earth and the blade from a chronus shell, sharpen against a rock until it held a deadly point. She shuffled silently on her feet, and peeked over the edge of the ledge she had slept upon, safely out the reach of the others and saw the most strangest sight. 

Beings like she had never seen before, their faces and forms barely visible by the dying firelight in the middle of the encampment, but she saw enough to know they were not like the others. Eyes wide and bright and so much like hers. Their skin wasn’t twisted or the dull grey like a falmer’s. One had dark skin, brown and rich as the soil of the earth. Another had a more fair color, with a hint of pinkish tone to it. Another skin was a luminous golden color, and this one had pointed ears like the falmer and eyes were slanted, and different from the other two. They also had strange outer skins, one looked like the fur of bear while the other two were shiny, sort of like the funny circles that the Matriarchs like to put on their fingers. 

A cord deep inside her soul had been struck by the sight of them. She had always been keenly aware of how different she was from the falmer, and the sight of these creatures that looked more like her than her own brethren made her heart twist for a reason that at that moment she couldn’t quite comprehend. Oh, how she longed to get close to them. She had tried, but she was run off by one of the older falmer, and after receiving a rather nasty cut along the back, she hadn’t tried again. 

Instead, she watched them from afar. They were held in the cages, and they fought to get out of them to no avail. She didn’t understand why they were caged up, and hadn’t given it much thought at that time. She watched them move their mouths and make noises at each other. She would move her mouth the same way they did, transfixed by the sounds they made. She heard nothing like it, and it was so much more beautiful compared to grunts and hiss the falmer made. It took her a couple of days to realize that she could make similar sounds, though not as clear nor pronounced like these strange people did. She craved to know more, to know what the sounds meant, to know why the strangers looked more similar to her than those she had grown with. Sadly, she did not get her chance. 

The men that were captured were killed the very next night, and the women…she had seen, and heard what happened to them. 

She had hunted to survive. Killed her prey, but that wasn’t what happened. The screams rang in her ears, and the sounds of flesh against flesh left a sickness feeling spread through her heart, her gut winding so painfully tight. Even then, when she was barely more than a beast, she could tell that it was wrong. It was beyond wrong. It was abhorrent, and shouldn’t happen. Her meal ended up spat up on the cavern floor. 

She hid for the rest of the night, trying to not to hear it. It took her hours after the silence to dare venture out, and she approached the cages. One woman, still and dead. The other letting out ragged breath, her body broken and beaten. Her eyes filled with tears fixated on the young child’s, and in her weaken state recognized someone who wasn’t like those that hurt her. “Kill me. Kill me, please,” the woman begged, snot running down her nose. She choked, and petals of blood stained her lips. “Please…” 

But she didn’t understand. To her shame, she turned, and ran, not stopping until she was safely curled up on her ledge, with her knees tucked tight to her chest. Her body shook from head to toe, and while she could honestly say she did not like her brethren, this was the first time she felt hate for them. Hate at what they do. Hate for what they were. It would be another year before she learned the meaning of those words, but even if she had not learned them, it would still have been a moment in her life that would have haunted until her death. 

But she did learn one thing from that moment. 

She wanted to be _nothing_ like her kind. 

* * *

Blood. Red blood against the cavern floor. 

Two of the Falmer had attacked her, but she had led them straight into the traps that laid right outside the camp. At one time, she would have felt something. There was a pack mentality after all, but after all she had seen, nothing stirred in her chest. She supposed they attacked because they noticed. She had begun to lure others out of the camp, and straight to their deaths. One she had led to the edge of a cliff, then pushed it over the edge. Another she had cut, and the wild bear that had taken refugee nearby had torn him apart. It was the only to ease the feelings, the ones she could not name for she had no name for them at the time, when they would capture and kill the strange folk. 

There was a darkness in her heart, and even when she got older, it was still there. It was a hatred so deep that not even time could erase it. Back then, in her heart, she would not be free until they were gone. She could not step into the golden light at the entrance of the cave until all of her kind that dwelled in the depths was gone. She hadn’t realized then that there were other caves with other falmer beyond the group that she lived with. In her head, it would all end with them. That why she had come up with a plan to finish it, and that’s why she moved silently into the main part of the encampment. 

A good portion of the pack had left in search of more captives, and a few patrolled the camp area while others slumbered. It was at this quiet time that she had to strike because something told her that if she did not act now, then she would die down here. Her brethren would kill her, and her body left to rot. Her eyes peered through the shadows, the only light was the faint glow from dying embers where the campfire normally burned. Her scalp prickled uncomfortably, and she adjusted her hold on her weapon because her palm had become slick with sweat. 

She approached the biggest tent in the camp, and licked her lips, her breaths sharp and uneven. It was the Matriarch’s tent, and it awoken, the Matriarch would slaughter her without a second thought. Her heart thundered inside of her chest, and she crouched down, moving as soundlessly into the tent as she could. The Matriarch had things that no other falmer had. Bottles of strange liquids that could harm or heal, and she wanted one particular bottle. It was a big bottle with a pitch black liquid. 

She hadn’t known then it was fear poison, but she had known what it could do. She had seen the Matriarch give it to the chronuses to make them go mad, and attack each other. She had a similar use for it, and her eyes darted to the Matriarch every other step she took. There was a roar inside of her ear so loud that she feared the Matriarch would hear it, too. Her eyes scoured around the tent, painfully aware of time slipping by, and she did not see the potion amongst the others. Her heart sank into her stomach, and she was ready to give up when her eyes flickered over the Matriarch then to items that lay right beside the Matriarch’s cot. 

A staff, a torch bug, a couple of feathers, and the black potion! The black potion sat just inches from where the Matriarch’s head laid. Fear choked her, she stood there tempted to run out of the tent and abandon it all. Yet some force welled inside of her and her feet propelled her forward as if with a will of their own. All too soon she loomed over the Matriarch, and the weapon in her hands trembled. Her eyes darted from the bottle to the Matriarch, indecision swirled hot in her gut. She could kill her. She could do it, and while the Matriarch would surely wake, surely scream and draw other, the deed would be done before she was killed in kind. 

Her arm was half raised, and she wanted nothing more than to raise her weapon high and bright it down over and over again. The Matriarch led them. The Matriarch taught them. The Matriarch was at the core of the falmer, and that made her solely responsible for the horrors in the young child’s eyes. The horrors she had witness that had bred this pain and hatred inside of her was the cause of this sleeping monster at her feet. But there was also a loyalty that stayed her blade. 

The Matriarch had kept her alive. For some unknown reason to her then, the Matriarch had kept her alive when it would have been easier to let her die. The blade fell to her side in a limp grip, and she clenched her teeth so tight holding back the urge to let out an angry bellow. Her small hand grasped the bottle, and she slunk out of the tent, as soundlessly as she had came.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone wants to take this premise and make it into a long fic then just send me a message, or comment, and we can talk. Also we know the Falmer continued to eat the mushrooms that made them the dwemer's slave, but for the fanfics sake, the dragonborn is immune to it.


End file.
